


page one

by inmylife



Series: our page [1]
Category: NU'EST, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 18:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife
Summary: (if your heart has a hole / i’ll cover it with my hands / even if your hands are empty, give them to me, i can fill them up)





	page one

**Author's Note:**

> summary is from home by seventeen.

_ a coffee sleeve _

It’s become… not quite routine, per se, but maybe habit, for Aron to pick up Starbucks on his way home from work. Coffee at 6 PM is maybe not the healthiest thing in the world, but it’s a tradition they’re building, the five of them, in the big big house just one street outside the city limits that they’re making their home, one harmlessly unhealthy decision at a time. 

Aron’s been part of this unit, part of  _ Jonghyun&Aron&Dongho&Minhyun&Ren _ , for years and years, but it’s only been three months since they moved into the big big house. 1958 Love Lane. It’s occurred to Aron a few times that, in the Cards Against Humanity College Expansion Pack, there’s a card titled “Five idiots signing a lease together”. He supposes that’s what they are. It doesn’t feel…  _ real _ , quite yet, that they’re five idiots with a house now. They’ve had a home for years, and that was each other, but sometimes Aron lies awake in his bed at night contemplating the fact that that house belongs to the five of them, legally, entirely theirs fair and square. 

He knows all of their orders by heart. Jonghyun gets something with far more sugar than anyone would expect; Dongho’s is decaf, to no one’s surprise; Minhyun prefers tea; Ren gets eirs with so much espresso even the baristas are shocked when they hear it for the first time. The girl taking his order now, though, Yuri, is someone who knows him by name and greets him with a smile and doesn’t have to clarify any questions about his order because she’s taken it a million times, it feels like. 

“How’s school?” he asks. 

She pulls a face. “Why would you even  _ ask _ ,” Yuri groans. “I’m slaving over my college essay,  _ still _ . It’s like it’s never gonna end and I’m stuck in the first two months of senior year forever.”

Ah, to be seventeen. “Don’t worry about it. Once January comes, it’ll go by faster than you can even imagine.” 

Yuri grimaces. “Yeah, but first there’s the matter of making it to January.” 

Someone else comes in behind him, so Aron waves Yuri goodbye and leans against the wall while he waits for the coffee. He leans his head against the wall, not sure if he should listen to the Jack Johnson coming over the store speakers or try to tune it out, and, bored, he takes a look around the coffee shop. 

And that’s when he sees him. 

Most people in a Starbucks are unremarkable at first glance and remarkable at the second, and the same is true for this boy. Aron’s eyes, at first, skid right over the thin man half-hidden at a corner table in favor of eyeing warily the suburban-looking mom chewing out her four-year-old for knocking three people’s coffees over with one incredibly mistimed fall, but after a moment something draws his gaze back. Back to this boy at the corner table, hunched over his phone like it’s a lifeline while the thing charges, a plastic cup of water in front of him with the name  _ Jisoo _ scrawled on it in trademark Starbucks sharpie marker. He glances up every so often, to look at the name. He turns the cup away when he sees Aron looking. 

Aron remembers something Jonghyun had told him once, about Starbucks water. When Jonghyun had been homeless - really homeless, sleeping-in-alleyways homeless, not crashing with friends like Aron and Ren had done - he’d gone into Starbucks and ordered a cup of water, which was free and, by virtue of being something one can order, allowed him to stay in the store for hours, in the air conditioning or the heating, charging his phone and using the bathroom, without it technically being loitering. Because, well, he  _ had _ ordered something. 

This boy has got a battered guitar case at his feet and a small, torn-up backpack hung over the back of his chair. Aron wonders. But then his order’s called, and he goes up to get it, and the thought - just for a moment - slips from his mind.

He doesn’t leave just yet, though. He puts the other four’s coffees into a cupholder, and as he does he hears the guy clear his throat. 

An innocent action, one people do every day without thinking about it. 

Humans are attentive, watchful creatures. Vigilant species, who turn when they hear a noise whether they like it or not. 

It’s in the aftermath of that head turn when Aron sees the pin. Tucked away in the fold of the backpack, hidden enough that no one sees it if they’re not used to trying but not so hidden that a practiced viewer, one who’s been trained to look for things like these for years, couldn’t find it. A tiny pin, maybe the size of Aron’s thumbnail, bearing colors that Aron doesn’t claim but that Dongho and Jonghyun do. 

When the puzzle pieces fly together in Aron’s head, he doesn’t dismiss them this time. He pauses, coffees in hand, and takes in the pin, and the shabby bag, and the guitar case, and the debilitated phone charger, and the cup of water, and the name this boy is ashamed to let Aron see. 

He thinks of Jonghyun. 

There are some moments in people’s lives that are nothing less than fateful. Moments where providence surely lent Her guiding hand, twining souls together with a practiced ease, moments that teeter like a coin does before it falls on heads or tails - that could have been innocuous, but simply were not. And the lives affected are all the better for it. 

This is one of those moments.

As though propelled, Aron walks up to that corner table. He sets the cupholder down, causing the man to look up, startled. 

“I know how this sounds,” starts Aron, “but, um, I saw the pin. On your bag?” 

The boy meets Aron’s eyes a little more confidently, now. 

“And this might be a little pretentious of me, but… do you, uh. Need someplace? To stay?” 

He blinks up at Aron, almost lost. “...I?” He says eloquently. 

“Listen, I know what kind of people come into Starbucks to order a cup of water and charge their phone.” 

There’s a second in which they both look around, self-conscious and conscious of each other, to see if anyone is looking. Seeing no one, the other responds. 

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse, a little scratchy, and definitely trying to pitch itself lower. This boy has so much Jonghyun in him it  _ hurts _ . 

“You wouldn’t be.” 

Aron gives the assurance blindly, because he knows it’s true. They’ve talked about what kind of household they want to be - and it was important to all of them that that household be a safe one. One with open doors. It’s why they bought the house on Love Lane, big as it was - its many bedrooms felt like a calling. 

Then, the boy reaches down and picks up his guitar case, and slings his ratty backpack over one shoulder. Something deep inside Aron breathes a heavy sigh of relief. 

“I’m Aron,” he says. “I use he/him or they/them. What’s your name?” 

It takes until they get in the car, guitar laid in the backseat and other people’s coffee balanced precariously on the center console, for the other to answer. 

“I’m Joshua,” he says. “I… I use he/him.”

“Joshua,” Aron repeats. “Nice to meet you.” 

_ a name tag _

“Key’s really nice,” Jonghyun reassures him. “The cafe… everything it’s rooted in is queer. And it’s not the most showy about that on the outside, but behind the counter… it’s that kind of safe space. You know?” 

Joshua looks at him. Jonghyun’s hand is in his, and they’re standing outside the door of the cafe. 

“I know you’re nervous,” he continues. “Being out when you don’t pass is terrifying for everyone. But Key won’t care. And that’s why I’m here with you.” 

Jonghyun knows that this wasn’t their only option. Before, Joshua had said he didn’t mind so much working someplace with his legal name. But he’d come home from the retail interviews dysphoric, shutting himself in his room and not coming out to eat something until three in the morning, and the five of them had worried. So Jonghyun had given Key a call. 

“I’m gonna go in now,” says Joshua, and pushes open the door. He startles a little at the bell ringing, and so does Jonghyun - just a bit. Noises are funny like that, always scaring sensitive humans whether the humans have reason to be sensitive or not. 

Key comes rushing from behind the counter the moment ze catches sight of Jonghyun, hands clasped together in what’s probably excitement. Jonghyun, who isn’t the greatest at reading people, can never be quite sure with Key. 

“Jonghyunnie!” ze exclaims. “Give me a hug I  _ missed _ you!” Laughing awkwardly, Jonghyun accepts hir embrace. 

“I saw you, like, a week ago, what are you on about,” he says, amused-sounding. 

“I always miss you,” Key replies. “And this… this, you’re Joshua?” Jonghyun sees the younger man preen a little under the correct name. 

“Ah, yeah. Hi.” 

“I’m Key. I use ze/hir/hirs. And I own this crap-cave,” ze adds, waving one arm to show the cafe off in a grandiose gesture. 

“Ze’s not giving hirself enough credit,” Jonghyun reassures Joshua. “It’s not crappy. It’s a damn good cafe.”

“And ze built it up from the ground hirself!” shouts the person behind the counter, not someone Jonghyun recognizes - a testament to how much less often he comes in here now, because this person is clearly someone familiar to Key, but he’s never seen them before. “Jeonghwa, she/they. Pleasure.” 

“I - Jonghyun. He/him,” he gets out, still sort of shocked by Jeonghwa’s familiarity in a space he still knows like his own home because he doesn’t know them at all. He has to elbow Joshua, too, because he’s staring starstruck at the counter striped in the genderqueer colors and at Jeonghwa towering over both of them in their high heels and at Key’s carpet-looking hair.

“Joshua, he/him,” says the younger. 

Someone comes through the door after them, someone customer-shaped, so Jeonghwa speeds back behind the counter at a speed that astonishes even Jonghyun (and he lives with Ren, he knows just how fast a person can go in heels), and Key follows her because it’s usually hir responsibility to make the coffee, and then it’s just Jonghyun and Joshua, standing on the rug a few paces from the doorway. 

“Look around,” Jonghyun encourages. 

He’s been in this cafe a million times. He knows the details down to the creaks in the wood floor. But he tries to see it with new eyes, part out of curiosity for what Joshua must be feeling and part out of bafflement over Jeonghwa’s presence and familiarity. What else has he missed? What has he let his eyes skip over, blinded by assumed sameness? 

The floor is made of wood. 

The floor is made of wood and it’s covered by a braided rug in front of the door, a braided rug colored in shades of blue and green.

The counter is handmade and painted in stripes. There is a lamp on each end, about a foot high, pink and bought from IKEA. 

There is a mural, behind the counter. It is of the moon. Beneath it, there are four words: “For those we’ve lost”. 

The coffee is served in mugs, a personal collection curated by Key and hir employees - some of them are well-loved and chipped in places, some of them were brought in brand new. An easy way to regift. 

A grand piano sits in the corner. Next to it is a slim, full-length mirror, leaning elegantly against the wall. 

Someone’s touch is everywhere. Taemin had had the idea years back to bring in a set of paints and some brushes, and the bottom of the counter and two of the walls and the piano and even, in some places, the floor are all covered in paint. Children’s handprints, toddler fingerpaintings, names and dates and miniscule, rough-edged landscapes, blending over each other and spilling onto every surface - even the tables and chairs, now. 

This place is beautiful, and it feels like home. 

“What do you think?” he asks Joshua. 

The other man’s got his hands crossed over his mouth. He’s just staring. Jonghyun isn’t sure whether he should laugh at that, or cry, or just stand and  _ under _ stand and let him take it all in. 

“It’s so -” 

He cuts himself off, and Jonghyun takes it that it’s okay for him to say, “I know.” 

Key comes up behind them, placing a hand on each of their backs. Both of them flinch a little at hir unexpected touch. It’s not unwelcome, though - at least not for Jonghyun. 

“Joshua. Let’s get you a name tag, and then we can make  _ this asshole _ -” ze pauses a moment to send a playful glare Jonghyun’s way “- some coffee.” 

“Why am I an asshole?” he asks. 

“Because you never come  _ in _ here anymore! None of you people! I miss you shitheads.” 

“Maybe it’s because you’re always insulting us,” Jonghyun mutters, but it’s nevertheless kind. He slumps into a chair, hardwood, paint creeping up the chair legs, and waits. 

“...we’ll get you a real proper name tag, the, uhh, laminated kind, in a couple weeks. For now, just write your name on a piece of paper and slip it in here. There’s markers… somewhere.” Something gets thrown. “Thanks, Jeonghwa. Anyways, Jonghyun likes his coffee basic and with a lot of milk, so let’s just start with the simplest…” 

He lets Key’s voice fade in and out as he listens - listens to the other customers (there’s only two of them) breathing and living and being in this same space, listens to the George Ezra coming from the speakers, listens to the sounds of the coffee machine and the air conditioner and the way Jeonghwa’s heels sound on the hardwood floor. 

And Joshua comes, and brings him his coffee. He watches on, eagerly and a little nervous, as Jonghyun tastes. 

“You don’t need my approval,” he tells him. “It’s good coffee. But Key’s the one you want to be watching with that much anticipation.” 

Joshua turns back, and sees Key smiling. And before he goes back, to learn more secrets of the coffee-making kind, he tells Jonghyun, “thank you.” 

_ a receipt _

It comes, and it sits on the kitchen table.

Ren watches it most of the day. It arrives on eir day off - a rare day - and Dongho is at the school where he student-teaches and Joshua is at the cafe and Aron is in the office and Raina is meeting a client and Jonghyun and Minhyun are both… out, doing whatever they do. And ey are alone in the house, which is a somewhat new experience for em. There’s usually  _ someone _ home, whether that person is one of eir four family members or whether it’s Joshua or Raina who’ve been staying with them or whether it’s simply… friends, in and out of the house, company. 

Ey are bored, and ey have no idea what to do with this box. The box has somebody’s deadname on it, so ey flip it over and stare at the upside-down box, pondering what could be inside. It permeates eir thoughts over the course of the day - as ey microwave eir lunch, as ey sit in the front room with eir computer under the pretense of trying to get some work done, as ey mindlessly surf through Netflix. Eir eyes continue to be drawn to the box. 

What can ey say? Ey are a curious being, and eir curiosity is insatiable.

Raina is the first one home. She’s a tall, round-faced lesbian who’d needed a place to crash after she’d gotten outed to her unknowing beard. She probably won’t stay long - she’s a graphic designer who makes decent bank, despite being freelance - but she’s a nice presence to have around. Funny and calming. She actually gets Jonghyun out of his room once in a while. 

“There’s a box on the table -” she starts.

“Joshua’s box,” ey interject. 

“O… kay,” Raina responds. She leans back against the kitchen counter as she microwaves some of last night’s leftover pasta. “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s  _ in _ it, would you? If you know it’s for Josh.” 

“Nope.” 

She stays, and eats her pasta in the kitchen, and they ponder the box together.

Minhyun comes home with Josh in tow. “What are you two staring at - is that mine?” asks Joshua, shoving past Minhyun and snatching the box off the kitchen table. “This is… for me. Why are you two staring at it?”

“Because Ren was,” answers Raina.

“Because I was bored, and because I’m a nosy little bitch,” says Ren. 

“Jeez. Well, alright…” 

Joshua turns to leave, but then Raina asks the question that’s been on Ren’s mind literally all day. 

“So… what’s  _ in _ there?” 

Joshua turns around again. He looks a little defensive. “You’ll laugh.”

“We won’t,” says Minhyun encouragingly. They turn around, looking from Ren to Raina. “We won’t laugh, we promise.” 

“Promise,” Raina tacks on. 

After a pause, in which all three of the others turn to look at Ren and start to glare, ey shrug and say, “whatever it is, it’ll be  _ tame _ compared to some of the stuff I’ve ordered on Amazon.” 

Joshua seems to take this as the most reassurance he’s going to get out of Ren (and he’s right about that), so he sighs. “It’s, um… it’s a video camera,” he admits finally. “This is kind of dumb, but, well… I’ve been saving so I thought… I don’t know, anyway. I guess I kind of wanted to make videos, like, to film myself. Playing the guitar.” 

It feels to Ren a little as though Joshua has just laid out his soul in front of the three of them to judge. 

Ey’re the one who says, in the end - breaking the awkward, nervous silence - “it’s not dumb. And, hey, Josh? You’re gonna be great.”

_ a train ticket _

They stand on the platform, the three of them, hand in hand in hand, none of them quite yet willing to let go. 

Joshua’s apartment is a good twenty minutes downtown by train. They had gone this morning, Dongho driving the lone car that the Love Lane house shares between its now eight residents, hauling boxes. Joshua’s boxes. And there had been enough boxes, in fact - clothing acquired over the year and change he’d lived with them, furniture nabbed from the other housemates or garage sales or Facebook Marketplace, little things gathered along the way like sheet music and books and trinkets given as birthday presence - that they’d spent the whole day at his apartment unpacking. Dongho had driven the others home earlier, once they’d finished unpacking, but Joshua didn’t want to have dinner alone at his new place for the first time and so Aron and Minhyun had assured the others they were fine to take the train back. They’d gotten takeout - potstickers - and had eaten it on Joshua’s newly-bought, colorful plastic plates, sitting in a triangle on the carpet because he didn’t have a dining table or chairs yet. 

And now? 

They are here, on the verge of goodbye. 

Aron grips Joshua’s and Minhyun’s hands even tighter. 

“It’s funny,” Joshua says, breaking the silence of the nearly-empty train station. “How I went from, you know… having a backpack and a guitar to having a car’s worth of boxes that take a full day to unpack.” 

“I believe that’s what the kids these days call a ‘glow up’,” says Minhyun. Their voice cracks. They always were much more sentimental than they would have anyone believe. The other two laugh. 

“And you’re gonna get even more stuff,” Aron adds. “There’s a housewarming party in your future, don’t you forget that.”

“Yeah, once I buy, like… a table,” Joshua says. “Which won’t be for a while.”

“Nope!” says Minhyun gleefully. “We’re stopping by with a casserole and some fake plants within the month, whether you like it or not.”

Joshua moving out hurts Aron in ways he doesn’t want to articulate. Joshua is the first of what Jonghyun in his softest and most exhausted moments calls ‘the kids’ - the people who live in the house who don’t have their names on the lease. People who needed a place to stay and the residents of 1958 Love Lane had offered one. Joshua was the first. And he was Aron’s. 

There was a funny, inexplicable relief Aron had found, in meeting someone else who spoke English. Someone else from his home city, even. And Aron was the one who’d found him and Aron was the one who’d invited him home. They have a bond, the two of them. And Aron’s strongest bonds are with his family, of course - with Jonghyun and Dongho and Minhyun and Ren - but what he has with Joshua is, nonetheless, something he doesn’t ever want to lose. He worries that Joshua moving out will change that. 

A train rushes by. 

“You’re gonna be okay, right? By yourself?” Minhyun asks earnestly. 

No one is as happy as they could be. Everyone who lives or has lived in their house has nightmares, or panic attacks, or days where for one reason or another they can’t get out of bed. Sometimes people have to be coaxed to eat. Others have to be shoved in a cold shower to break them out of a catatonic spiral. Joshua is no exception. Joshua’s brand of sadness is refusing to meet people’s eyes some days, and being unable to focus on anything else so he plays guitar until his fingers bleed, and letting laundry pile up because he just can’t make himself do it. And one thing that helps all of them is knowing that support, love, comfort, and acceptance are all just a flight of stairs and half a hallway away. 

Joshua won’t have that anymore. 

He’s not the first person to move out, so this isn’t a new worry to Aron. But the worry doesn’t subside, with each person who moves out and does fine on their own. Knowing that Raina’s doing okay, or that Sanggyun is, or Yunjin, doesn’t make Aron worry for Joshua any less. Each person is their ownself, with their own demons, and every single one of them are lovers and worriers at heart. 

“I will be.” Joshua looks confident, and his voice is firm. “I know you’re only a phone call away, and I know that home will always be there, should I need it.”

Minhyun seems placated, if only for the time being. Their train arrives. 

Minhyun and Joshua give each other a hug, a long and close one, and then Minhyun joins the smattering of people boarding the train. Aron lingers. 

Joshua takes him by the arm and pulls him close. 

“Aron,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

Aron knows all of what’s inside that ‘thank you’. It’s ‘you gave me a home’ and ‘you saved me’ and ‘you are my friend’ and ‘I love you’ wrapped into one. He’s not being arrogant here - they’ve had this talk. This isn’t the first time Joshua has said this. Aron hopes it won’t be the last. 

Joshua steps back, and lets him go. There are tears in both their eyes. 

Aron gets on the train.

_ a doctor’s note _

He squeezes his hand tight. 

“Okay, we’re gonna do this on three, alright?” Aron knows that they actually do it on two, but he doesn’t say anything. “One, two -” 

Joshua gasps. “That, that  _ hurt _ , I mean I know that shots hurt but I still wasn’t -”

The nurse smiles, laughs a little. Aron’s phone lights up. 

“Jonghyun’s texting me,” he comments, not looking up for a moment. “He wants to know if - I mean, how much should I tell him about -” 

“I thought I was going back with you, wasn’t I?” asks Joshua from his periphery. “I can tell him everything myself. Dongho, too - I mean, everyone’s gonna ask me, might as well get it all done in person at one place.” 

They leave the doctor’s office quietly. Aron gets in the car, and turns the key - and then stops short, when he looks over to the passenger seat and sees Joshua, head turned up to the ceiling, silently crying. 

He turns the engine back off. 

Jonghyun cried too, for his first, but Aron wasn’t there for that - Dongho was, though, and he’d texted them all in a panic because Jonghyun had started crying from the moment the needle’d pulled out and Dongho had panicked that something was wrong. As for Dongho’s own first T shot, he was a lot younger and didn’t know the rest of them yet. (But for the record, Aron would guess Dongho cried as well.)

Aron waits, for a little while, letting him cry it out. It’s only after three minutes tick past on the clock, and Joshua is only just starting to calm down, that he speaks. 

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks, softly.

Joshua takes a few stuttering, deep breaths. Aron sees his shoulders - no, his whole body trembling. 

“You don’t have to keep it inside,” he adds. “It’s an emotional moment for everyone. Jonghyunnie cried too, you know.” 

Joshua allows himself a wet laugh at that. “Jonghyun did? Cried?”

“He does, sometimes.” Aron nods. “Usually when he’s stressed, or he feels like he’s fucked something up, but… he does cry over happy things too.” 

Aron looks over, and he sees Josh smile. It’s a little one, but it’s a dash of sunlight peeking through the rain. 

He waits. 

He waits some more. Ten minutes have come and gone over the dashboard clock, now. Still, there is silence.

“I mean, I know I’m a guy.” Joshua says finally. “Everyone in my life has seen me as a man, for a while now.”

“But…?” prods Aron when Joshua doesn’t elaborate.

“In a few years,” he answers quietly, “I might be able to go back to my hometown, and people might not even recognize me. And that’s a good thing.” 

Aron hums in agreement. 

“And I’m gonna be able to look in mirrors, again. And my voice, and - and - and -” Joshua looks like he’s gonna start crying again, so Aron reaches across the console and takes his hand. Joshua squeezes it tight. 

“It’s a lot of change. Good change.” 

“Yeah,” Josh agrees, and everything about his body language becomes faster and more frenetic somehow. “And I - this is something I’ve been thinking about for a decade. More than that. And it doesn’t feel real that it’s here and it’s happening and that it hurts like hell - I mean, it’s like the abstract concept of the future came up and stung me on the thigh in there.”

Aron knows he shouldn’t, but that last sentence makes him burst out laughing. Just like that, the heavy tension in the car breaks, and the moment is less profound than it is achingly normal. 

“God, Josh. Let’s go home.”

_ an album tracklist _

Dongho’s phone rings. He doesn’t know people who use their phones to make real, actual phone calls for reasons that aren’t work-related, so his first instinct is that something is wrong. He picks up, fear pulsing through his abdomen.

“Shua?”

“Dongho.” The other man says breathlessly from the other end of the line. “I - I - you’re not gonna believe this.”   
“Are you okay?” he asks anxiously. “Why did you call me, Shua, what’s wrong?” 

Dongho will admit, though, that Joshua is more inclined to making phone calls than the rest of them. Since his voice settled, he’s become a lot more confident with that sort of thing - Dongho was the same way, too, for a little while, and Jonghyun as well. It’s just that so few people they knew made phone calls that they eventually fell out of the habit. 

“Nothing’s wrong.” It sounds like Shua’s trying to catch his breath. “I just maybe um got a record deal?” 

His words rush out in a stream so fast Dongho doesn’t process them right away. Then he  _ does _ process them.

“You got a what???? Oh my god, Shua, that’s amazing!”

“Yeah - yeah!” Joshua’s excitement is tangible now, viable, and Dongho really doesn’t know why he couldn’t hear the exhilaration from the moment he answered the phone. “It’s, um, this producer guy, Lee Jihoon - Woozi? He’s - he’s another trans musician and he watched my videos and he - well, now that my voice is settled - I -”

“Lee Jihoon?”

“Yeah, that’s his name. He’s been producing for a while, apparently, I had to Google him but he’s been behind, like, you know Zhou Kyulkyung? She’s been blowing up recently?”

Dongho cuts him off. “Yeah I know Joo Kyulkyung. I went to high school with that girl. She’s a lesbian, you know.” He continues talking over Joshua’s murmured surprise. “Lee Jihoon. I know him. Like, personally. We did high school chorus together, him and me and Joo Kyulkyung.” Dongho pauses to laugh. He’s blowing poor Shua’s mind right now, he’s sure. “He stayed with me and Jonghyun for a while, when the two of us shared this one shitty apartment. I still have shit we worked on together in my files.”

“I mean I know you have another job right now but maybe you should give him a call I mean if you guys would work together that would be cool I mean if I could sing something you made Dongho that would be so meaningful and I -”

“Oh my god, Shua, take a breath.” Dongho chuckles. “I’m really happy for you, okay? And I miss you, but I’m on my lunch break right now and I should maybe use it for eating.” Break time, Dongho remembers, is something that Lee Jihoon never quite learned how to use. Their new intern, Hongjoong, is something of the same - Jihoon and Joong both work day into night into day again and then collapse the moment they turn away only to go right back to work again as soon as they’ve decided they’re healthy enough. Dongho was always there to bother Jihoon into sleeping before three in the morning and to eat something that’s not a negligible bowl of cat cookies from Trader Joe’s back when they lived together - he wonders who’s doing it now. Their other intern, Soyeon, is shaping up to be that kind of presence in their studio, keeping Hongjoong - and Dongho and Hui and Chan and Sungyeon too, for that matter - off their feet when they’re off the clock. 

This makes Dongho remember something Joshua forgot. “And, by the way, it’s not ‘another job’. It’s  _ my _ studio, that I co-own.”

Joshua stumbles over excited apologies as Dongho laughs, tells Shua he loves him and to drop by soon, and hangs up. 

Should he tell Shua that he’s the one who sent Jihoon a link to his youtube channel?

Mmm, no. Better not to. 

**Author's Note:**

> endless, endless thanks to my own found families.
> 
> if you liked this and, for some godawful reason wanna talk to me, you can find me on tumblr @[everykissbeginswith](https://everykissbeginswith.tumblr.com/) or on twitter @[stillpristin](https://twitter.com/stillpristin). this will be updated... when something comes to me. my regular readers know just how shitty i am at updating things, so dont expect too much from me.


End file.
